Don't be afraid of Infinity Time; Party Characters are easy [ Edited ]

[Ziago_J]

Infinity Time is not as difficult as some of us may be led to believe. As we play through the endless waves and realize just how tough it can get, especially when ran solo it can become quite daunting to think that we must grind through 100+ Infinity Time stickers in order to get Party Characters. I was one of them. But now, it has become nothing more than one of those "Oh well it'll take 45 minutes for a 50% or so chance for a party sticker". Let's get down to the gritty.

To start with, I can't take the entirety of credit for this. https://www.reddit.com/r/PvZGardenWarfare/comments/47x5xw/infinity_mode_efficient_solo_strategy_for/ <--- This particular reddit post clued me into some strategies that I didn't quite grasp on my own. Turns out that Infinity Time doesn't require large amounts of waves in order to get your top prize. It just takes 25,000 time Shards.

TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND SHARDS. If played properly, you will get this by the end of wave 25. And the only true limiter is how long it takes you to get there.

The waves are easy (By Opinion) up until wave 15-25, when the enemies start dealing real amounts of damage to your tank. Let me wall of text you with some tips and strategy for a moment.

Tip #1: THE STICKERS YOU GET ARE DEPENDENT ON YOUR SIDE. -- I did this on Zombie side, got ONLY zombie stickers. So long as I made 25,000 shards, I got a party character sticker at least 75% of the time (So far 4 hats, all Zombie party stickers and 1 20,000 coin pack). I started bringing a friend, and this took the time to complete down from 45 mins to 35. When I got a party sticker, so did they. When I got the 20k coins as a prize, they got 25k.

Tip#2: Giga Gnomes? They're tough. And if they hit you with their melee, it will do 200 damage. However, your R1 (The spin attack) and your L1 (Your forward charge) will provide you with immunity to the majority of what they do. Keep in mind that the pounce attack does not apply invulnerability to your Tank-Mech until you are actually moving. I tend to time my charges or spins for when they just start to spin up their gatling gun lamp. This will allow me to pounce through them (As they switch from gatling mode to melee mode) or allow me to soak up the damage of their Gatling Lamp simply by spinning around.

Tip #3: Floaties. A Floatie will only appear in the beginning. If the wave starts and it doesn't tell you a Floatie is coming, there won't be one, allowing you to use your Furball Frenzy for plain damage goodness. However, in a Floatie Wave, on solo, there will always be 2.

Tip #4: R1 (Pounce attack). When dealing with Floaties, it is okay to drop your Furball Frenzy in and begin mashing the Pounce attack. This is because Floaties generate a large number of enemies directly below them. On the norm I will get a Floatie down to 1/4 health left before dropping frenzy and using pounce, in order to avoid the damage that comes from a mistake involving standing around too much and being overwhelmed while focusing on Floaties.  ----- DURING A FLOATIE WAVE EXPECT TO TAKE STABILITY DAMAGE WHILE YOUR FURBALL FRENZY RECHARGES. WHILE IT IS OKAY TO DO SOME DAMAGE TO THE SECOND FLOATIE, CONSIDER TAKING CARE OF THE MONSTERS ON THE GROUND WHILE YOU ARE WAITING FOR FURBALL FRENZY TO COME BACK

Tip #5: (Most important) Nemesis Wave (Gardens/Tombstone) gives you an incredible chance to create a health pool at the Garden. With the absolute guarentee that there will be no Floatie, you can actually camp the spawns of the Plants (Or Zombies) With your Furball Frenzy Or Mega Horn Blast. The Time Shards DO NOT disappear with time and are auto collected at the end of every 5th wave. This means a well cut Garden can result in a very generous pool of health. Not destroying the gardens or tombstones will result in a shorter round at the cost of 1,000 coins. This also means that if you can vanquish Gnomes without taking too much damage, it's possible to leave shards lying all over the map for when you get in over your head.

Tip #6: Singularities: After Wave 21 a Red singularity will spawn. This Red SIngularity will be your biggest problem after you've gotten the hang of kicking Gnome butt like apro. The Red SIngularity will chase you the entire time, and sometimes you may find yourself trying to use furball frenzy only to get snuck up on by the red Ball that can eat you alive in 4 seconds flat. (Possibly way quicker!!!!!!)  If you see a Red SIngularity, keep its location in mind, and try to fight as far from it as possible. So long as you fight far away from the Singularity, it will be forced to slowly chase you across the map, and if it catches up to you, heading to the other side of the map will ensure it doesn't bother you in any way. Do not get confident and fight around it. It will soak your laser damage if Gnomes try to hide around it, ensuring that you cannot hurt them.

I'm about to start farming the plant side of Infinity Time. I was very surprised with how often the Party Stickers dropped, and before I saw it myself, I thought for sure that I wouldn't even be able to get any of them. I can understand that getting to wave 25 (And beating it) won't come quite as easy for others as it does for me (I hide behind walls and use pounce to take out lines of enemies, so waves aren't too difficult. I also have Floatie hunting down to a process), but after round 25, you have technically defeated "Every" boss in Infinity time, making the numbers and prizes align so beautifully.

Do not let the hat or money prize discourage you either. I can promise you that the Party stickers dropped nearly everytime I finished infinity time with at least 25,000 time shards. And if EA does the beautiful import thing they did with PvZ GW -> GW2, then having the Party Characters will only ensure the ability to reduce your total overall grind in the possible next installment.

Good luck PvZers! And I hope you get your Party stickers.

On a final side note, trying to build a health pool on plant side during nemesis wave has landed me a SINGLE TIME in a glitched state where I couldn't find any enemies to destroy, but it told me there was. Perhaps I didn't search hard enough, but I think it may be a glitch possibility.

[realitysquared]

For the Giga Gnomes my favorite tactic is to get some distance on them and find a corner or a large chunk of wall or stone and using burst fire to blast them in their head area for critical damage. As the Giga Gnome approaches you back away towards another corner or source of cover; should they drop their Mushroom hammer and point it towards you, indicating that they are powering up their beam weapon, you simply stop firing and sidestep behind your cover or your corner until the beam cuts out again.

I generally suggest keeping the Giga Gnomes in sight, but at a distance, while you vanquish all the smaller Gnomes and save them for last when you don't have to worry about the little guys coming up on your flanks or rear.

For singularities, especially multiple singularities, I can't stress how handy a good pair of headphones can be in avoiding them. All Singularities emit a deep thrumming noise which gets louder as they close in on you and with a good pair of headphones you should be able to tell just by listening where the singularities are around you and how close, enabling you to concentrate on shooting your Gnome opponents until the audio cue tells you that a singularity is practically right on top of you.

Also you should become familiar with how the singularities behave; each one has a different character to it;

The Green Singularity is unconcerned with you and will simply slowly wander the field without purpose. It will not react to you or chase you in any fashion so you can safely fight near it if you must as long as you keep any eye on how and where it is wandering.

The Red Singularity specifically hunts the closest Player, moving at a constant but slow speed and using the shortest path towards you at all times. You should not attempt to pass close to it or fight near it unless you are forced to do so.

The Yellow Singularity will actually stay motionless unless approached by a Player. When you get within a certain close distance it will then immediately begin moving towards that Player at a fairly quick pace and will continue to move until all Players have moved outside of the range where it can detect you. If you learn the exact "safe" distance from this singularity you may fight near it or pass by it and it will not react to your presence.

The Blue Singularity will actively hunt the closest Player in the same manner as the Red Singularity with one notable difference; when the closest Player is far away it will move with increased speed to close that distance as quickly as possible and once the closest Player is within a certain distance it will then adjust to a slow speed as it continues to approach. Because of the variable speed at which this Singularity moves Players will have a shorter respite from moving to a far corner of the map and will need to more actively track this Singularity's whereabouts.

Another good tactic for both solo Players and groups is for the Players to move towards one end, or corner, of the map during Waves which do not feature Floaties, and quickly vanquish any Gnomes which have spawned in the chosen area. By doing so the opponents, and any singularities, can only approach from a smaller number of directions which can be kept in your field of view, reducing the possibilities that you will be flanked, surrounded, or caught unaware from behind.